3/18/13 Meeting Recap

Next weeks Prompt: Write a story that opens with your main character doing something that is completely antithetical to his or her personality. Let the story be about how this character came to do what he or she did.

Roles for next week:
Prompt Discussion: Antithesis
Teachable: Domo Panda with Blog Design
Prompt Bringer: (Shoot, I don't remember! this is why I should write this down!)
QuoteMaster: Alex Turner (I'll experiment with this, it's fun but I don't know that we need to complicate this any more... :P )

Prompt Discussion: Talked about our description pieces, mostly focused on tone & diction. Lots of excellent writing, but not necessarily potential for standalone stories (except for Jn, whose book hijacked her brain while she was writing.) A good opportunity to stretch ourselves into territory we're not comfortable with.


Teachable: Speed writing Fantasy Critters

Marine Cat-spiders, flowy death dragons, and Clifford the big black luck-puppy.

3/4/13 Meeting Recap

Write Prompt for next week: 

Write for twenty minutes, without stopping, a piece of pure description about something you see (a person, a scene, or an object in the room). No dialogue, no metaphor, no emotion; just pure description, as detailed as possible. Then write, nonstop, for another twenty minutes about the same subject, but this time use only speculation—imagine the subject's thoughts, perceptions, emotions, inner, or outward dialogue, etc.—and/or your own thoughts and observations about the subject. Combine the two pieces, and see what kind of story comes to life.

Discussion From Last Weeks Prompt:

We read everyone's perspective pieces, and surprisingly enough, nobody stepped on anyone's toes! It was very interesting to imagine the characters interacting with one another, (and at times they nearly did, and it worked!)

Teachable from this week:

We read a passage from Lord of the Rings quoting Faramir and started a discussion about:

Introducing a Character and Getting an immediate reader connection:

We started with what Tolkien does well:

• Faramir values peace and beauty (both intrinsically valuable) in a world that values glory
• Faramir is fair, and just, and patient, and humble. And he makes that clear using trigger words and phrases, and is put to the test early and often during his brief stint in the book
• Faramir has a well developed foil (character to contrast against) in his Brother Borimir, who is a prime example of everything Gondor values (Glory in Battle, Strength, Rash Bravery)

This makes him very likable and makes his character valuable to the reader, and as a target for consequences. It sounds cruel, but we need to have characters that readers like so we can feel the weight of consequences when they suffer. And if it's in the beginning of our stories or near the end, we have to introduce them very quickly.

Then we started discussing the case of wanting to make a character un-likable (much harder to do).

• Making them Cruel or obnoxious is one way. 
• Cowardice, unless it's funny, is a sure winner. Brave villans are admirable (Javert), cowardly ones are detestable (Commodus in Gladiator)
• Have them attack a likable character
• Have them ridicule a relate-able flaw in another character. (Snapping at someone for being reasonably late to a meeting)

You can hinge your whole narrative around a character in the beginning, and set the stage for who to like and who not to, and who is good and bad:

A Well presented case study: The Pilot Episode of Firefly

Kaylee immediately captures the audiences heart as the cute, plucky ships mechanic by being cheerful, and saying quirky things (Everything's Shiny, cap!)

-You like Book because he is convinced to go with Serenity by Kaylee's love of her baby (the ship that is)

-You learn to dislike Jayne because he insults her.

-You learn to like Mal because he defends her from Jayne

-The stakes are raised when she (as an innocent bystander) is shot by the Fed agent, obviously he is super Bad dude.

-You learn to like Jayne a little more because underneath that mean, crusty mercenary exterior is a extremely competent, brutal mercenary, and underneath that is a big softie that really cares about Kaylee's well being.

- And so on!